2025 US GP Qualifying Preview

Now, it is time for James Punt’s 2025 US GP Qualifying preview. Max Verstappen landed us a nice winner in the Sprint Race, hopefully there’s more to come.

2025 US GP Qualifying

Once the flag falls on the Sprint race, the teams are free to change the setup of their cars for the rest of the weekend. They will have more data to draw upon and because the cars will be having to carry a full tank of fuel, changes have to be made. Ferrari will probably have to raise the ride height and that may well have a negative impact on their cars’ performance, and it wasn’t great in yesterday’s sprint qualifying.

We had five cars knocked out in the sprint race. Lando Norris’ car took a big hit and the team will first of all have to repair the car, before working on any changes, so that is a negative. Piastri’s suspension was damaged, so ditto for him. Hulkenberg did finish the race but his car will need checks.

Damage For Stroll

Both Aston Martins were out. I don’t think Alonso’s car suffered any great damage, but Lance Stroll’s certainly did. The fact that he tried to drive off with his front suspension trashed, and the floor dragging along the track, just made a bad thing worse.

Ocon, who Stroll used as target practice, will also need quite a bit of work. The Haas had some upgrades, but I think that was around the front wing so that should be ok. Stroll has received a five-place grid penalty for causing an accident.

We have had one qualifying session already, and while they are never simple repeats of the first one, it was pretty clear that Verstappen and the two McLarens were clear of the pack. I doubt that will change.

Red Bull may be looking to make changes to improve the cars race pace, because it didn’t look great and Verstappen said as much. That may open the door a fraction for the McLarens, and Norris was only a fraction off Verstappen yesterday.

It will likely be as close as it was yesterday, but I will have a go on Norris being on the right side of things today. Hopefully his chassis will be fine, and it should be.

2025 US GP Qualifying Tip: 1 point Lando Norris to be the fastest qualifier @ 3.20 with SpreadEx

I did say that this qualifying session is not just a repeat of yesterday’s session, but my bets are!

Yuki Tsunoda was shafted by his own team yesterday and failed to get out of Q1, but not due to a lack of pace. I trust they will be paying attention this time and Yuki will be feeling happy that he was able to turn his 18th on the grid into a seventh place finish. A kind of Karmic payback.

Hopefully he didn’t use up all his Karmic points in the Sprint. He did get lucky at the start, and plenty did, but he will feel good about getting a couple of points and hopefully that will show up in his qualifying later.

2025 US GP Qualifying Tip: 1 point Yuki Tsunoda to reach Q3 @ 3.50 with Ladbrokes

Niko Hulkenberg was very fast on Friday. Second in FP1 and fourth in sprint qualifying. We never got to see how that would have panned out in the sprint race, but his one lap pace was good, very good.

He was easily faster than Lewis Hamilton on Friday and maybe Ferrari are going to have make set up changes to protect the plank for tomorrow’s race. If so, that means running the car out of its ideal setup and giving up some pace. Both drivers were disappointed with yesterday’s qualifying pace, and rightly so.

2025 US GP Qualifying Tip: 1 point Nico Hulkenberg to out qualify Lewis Hamilton @ 2.35 with Ladbrokes

-JamesPunt